More on judge Silica murder case shelved – AIM report

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More on judge Silica murder case shelved – AIM report

5:20 CAT | 14 Feb 2017

Sapo (File photo) / Judge Dinis Silica was gunned down in his car on 8 May 2014, as he was waiting at a set of traffic lights, at a busy Maputo intersection.

The Maputo City branch of the Mozambican Public Prosecutor’s Office has shelved the case of the 2014 murder of judge Dinis Silica, on the ground that almost three years of investigation have yielded no clues as to the identity of the assassins.

Silica, a senior criminal investigation judge in the Maputo city court, was gunned down in his car on 8 May 2014, as he was waiting at a set of traffic lights, at a busy Maputo intersection. Witnesses said three gunmen sprayed Silica’s car with bullets, and then sped away in their own car. The murder took place in broad daylight, at about 08.00, and near a police station.

Silica had been handling sensitive cases, including those of people believed to be involved in the kidnappings of wealthy business people, mostly of Asian origin.

On Thursday the Public Prosecutor’s Office issued a statement admitting that the investigations had made no headway. The ballistic examination of the bullets and spent cartridges led nowhere, nor did prosecutors obtain useful information form Silica’s phone records or his bank accounts (no doubt investigated because a large sum of money was found in his car).

Eye-witnesses were questioned and footage from surveillance cameras on the route that Silica was believed to have followed was viewed, but none of this led to the assassins.

The Mozambican prosecutors requested assistance from South Africa and from Portugal in obtaining information from mobile phones and “other equipment” seized during the investigation. The statement did not explain precisely what this equipment was, but presumably it consisted of computer hard drives. Again the investigators drew a blank, finding nothing that would help them identify the killers.

Since the usual time limit on preliminary investigations ran out long ago, and since there was no sign that further investigations would lead anywhere, the Public Prosecutor’s Office has shelved the case – with the proviso that it will be reopened, if any new evidence comes to light.

Source: AIM